Islamic Party Wins Turkish Election, Edging Out Secularists

Reuters

Published: December 25, 1995

ANKARA, Turkey, Monday, Dec. 25—
The Welfare Party, an Islamic group, won weekend general elections in Turkey by a slim margin, the state-run TRT-1 television station said today.

With 96 percent of ballot boxes counted, unofficial returns showed the Welfare Party with 21.13 percent of the votes, just ahead of the main opposition Motherland Party, with 19.66 percent, and Prime Minister Tansu Ciller's True Path Party, with 19.37 percent, the station said.

The television station estimated that the Welfare Party would end up with 159 seats in the 550-member Parliament, giving it the first chance at trying to form a government as the party with the most members of Parliament. Seats are assigned under a complex system of proportional representation.

The Motherland Party is likely to get 134 seats and the True Path Party 133, the station said. Estimates by private television stations were similar.

But the Welfare Party seems likely to have a difficult time finding coalition partners.

The Motherland Party leader, Mesut Yilmaz, said he would not set up a government alliance with the Islamists. The American-educated Ms. Ciller has also ruled out a coalition with the Welfare Party.

The Islamists oppose the NATO membersip of Turkey, which is 99 percent Muslim, and have said they will renegotiate a recent customs union pact that gives the country some of the closest ties to the European Union of any non-member.

The election was seen as a contest between pro-Western secularists and the Muslim traditionalists of the Welfare Party.

"Your decision is to choose civilization or darkness," Ms. Ciller told the electorate in a final attack on the Welfare Party.

The Welfare Party's leader, Necmettin Erbakan, voting in Ankara, told supporters, "God will make these elections the day of deliverance for all the people of our country."

But some Welfare Party voters, reflecting the general malaise of an electorate battered by runaway inflation, high unemployment and uneven economic growth, seemed less than committed.

"Let him come and welcome to him," said one man awaiting Mr. Erbakan's arrival. "It will be change and he certainly can't be worse" than the others.

Ms. Ciller and her Motherland Party rival, Mr. Yilmaz, pursued a campaign in which they alternately slammed each other and their Islamic foe. They have resisted calls, led by business circles, for a conservative coalition.

The Welfare Party, relying on ideological coherence and grass-roots organization, sought to build on big gains of 1994, when it won Istanbul, Ankara and other cities in local polls. It has traded heavily on its anti-Western message and clean image.

Ms. Ciller hoped to convert the customs union with the European Union, sealed on Dec. 13, into votes for her vision of secularist Turkey anchored to the West.

She was forced to call early elections after her right-left coalition collapsed in September.